Before he was America’s dad, Tom Hanks worked several odd jobs not related to acting at all. He sold hot dogs at Oakland A’s baseball games as a teen and in the ‘70s, he worked at a bellhop for the Oakland Hilton Hotel. Well, that job ended up being relatively related to his future, as it saw Hanks actually serve Pop Goddess Cher.
On Friday, 67-year-old Hanks appeared alongside Cher, 77, as well as actors Julia Roberts and Timothée Chalamet on the latest episode of The Graham Norton Show. There, Hanks reminisced about his time working for Cher and what she was like to those around her.
Tom Hanks shares what Cher was like when he was a bellhop serving her
“I have worked for Cher. I was a bellman at the Oakland Hilton Hotel,” shared Hanks, which drew a shocked “No!” from Cher. He confirmed the news, adding, “You were with one of your rock-and-roll husbands, and we had your bag.” This was around 1975 or 1976, he estimated.
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Hanks continued, “And then word came down, ‘Hey, run this up to Cher’s room,’ so I did. I knocked on the door and I put it down and you came out and said, ‘Yeah, that’s it. Thanks, kid.’ And that was it.”
“So I have worked for Cher,” concluded Hanks.
Tom Hanks is not averse to taking on work like that again
Hanks has not in all the years since rising to international fame shied away from returning to his old jobs. Especially any that involve handling food. In fact, just as Hanks served snacks at Oakland A’s games as a 14-year-old, he went on to lend his voice as a virtual vendor at the Oakland Coliseum, selling hot dogs, peanuts, and sodas.
Hanks recently shared a very specific idea circumstance in which he’d like to serve food again: if he could do so during a space flight to the moon.
“I would like to be the guy in charge of serving food and making jokes to and from the moon,” proposed Hanks back in September. “If there was room, I would be the guy that cleans up, makes jokes, tells stories and keeps everybody entertained.”
By the way, Hanks is also obsessed with space, a love affair that began when he first saw Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and, of course, persisted well beyond his role in 1995’s Apollo 13. Now, he has an immersive new space-themed exhibit in London called The Moonwalkers: A Journey With Tom Hank, which opens on December 6 and runs until April 21.
